People are afraid of perfect honesty because we are afraid of getting hurt. This is shortsighted because, in the end, only perfect love can be the truth—and there is nothing about love not to love!

Honesty, however, is a process—an ongoing process, a thought system, a radically different way of life. Whenever two people begin practicing perfect honesty, at first it can hurt; but the only thing getting hurt is the ego.

The ego is built entirely upon a foundation of values and ways of thinking that always hurts everyone. The ego—with its faith in guilt, attack, specialness, superiority, and brutal selfishness—hurts like hell when it is exposed because it is nasty and ugly. The thing is; when two people allow the ego to be fully exposed, when they accept it and look at it honestly, what they see is something they do not want.

All these “truths” that we are so afraid of, the “secrets” we are slaves to—every single one of them are entirely unreal illusions. In the ultimate reality, everything the ego makes is nothing.

When two people keep going more and more deeply into honesty, what is ultimately revealed is perfect truth: which is and can only be unconditional love.

The path to salvation, awakening, enlightenment, unconditional love—whatever you want to call it—is and can only be the path of honesty, accessible in the absence of ego. Ultimately, honesty is the undoing of all the errors which block love.